Race #279 – Santa Scramble 5k – Concord, NC – 11/22/14

This was my sixth time to run the Santa Scramble, one of my favorite 5k races of the year. It’s the first entry in the Concord Christmas Parade so there’s plenty of excitement along the way and enough people watching to keep you running your best. The weather was great again this year and my best guess would be that there were probably at least 10,000 people along the course. For the most part they weren’t there for the race but instead were there for the marching bands, baton twirlers, and the appearance of Santa Claus, but there’s still a lot more encouragement as you run than there would be if they weren’t there.

The best part of the Santa Scramble is the last mile, where there’s a half mile of downhill running just before the finish. With the first couple of miles being mostly flat (with maybe just barely a little bit of an upward incline in places) it’s the fastest 5k race I know of in the Charlotte area and mostly every year I’ve run it it’s been my fastest 5k of the year.

The Santa Scramble is the only race where I’ve run a sub 20-minute 5k and I would have liked to done that this year, but with the races in the two previous weeks being my slowest half marathon of the year and my slowest 5k of the year, I felt like I’d be happy with just being under 21 minutes. I finished at 20:23 and won my age group so I was satisfied with that, and I felt better than I’ve been feeling over the previous month as I have been recovering from a cold.